How to stop overthinking and procrastinating

Summary

Erik has over 300 000 followers on Instagram and "How to stop procrastinating?" and "How to stop overthinking?" are by far the most common questions that he gets.

Almost everyone has this problem. You are not alone.

Today's episode has been split up into four topics:

1. Why we are overthinking? What is the reason that we struggle to get started even when we know what to do?
2. How to stop comparing ourselves with others?
3. What to do when we are feeling overwhelmed?
4. How to remove self-doubt?

We are exploring why we are overthinking and how to stop overthinking.

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Today's episode is a personal development episode, where Erik Bergman and Emil Ekvardt explore topics about how to grow as a person.

We are both personal development junkies and spend many hours every week sharing our ideas and reading about new things. This episode is great for you who want to learn about our latest perspective.

We share lots of personal stories, talk about how it applies in our lives, and where we have learned it from.

1. In the first topic we are diving into why we are procrastinating and overthinking. What is it within us that stops us from taking action even though we know what to do? We explain the reasons behind it, when we are struggling with overthinking ourselves and what you can do to stop overthinking and procrastination.
2. In the second topic we are looking into how you can stop comparing yourself to others. One big reason for overthinking is that we compare ourselves and that causes us to feel bad, which lowers our energy and makes it harder for us to take action. To understand this is an important part of how to stop overthinking.
3. In the third topic we are explaining how we deal with the feeling of being overwhelmed. The feeling of not knowing where to start and feeling that there are too many things going on at the same time. How to break tasks down and make it easier to stop overthinking by getting a sense of control over the situation.
4. The fourth and final topic is about changing our mindset and the way we think about things around us. What meaning do we give to different situations and how can we shift that meaning to something that serves us better. One great way of how to stop overthinking is to get better at seeing hard things as challenges rather than problems.

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Social media channels:
http://linktr.ee/smilingerik
http://linktr.ee/emil.e

Transcript

[00:00:00] I have over two hundred thousand followers on Instagram, and by far the most common questions that I get are how to stop procrastinating and how to stop overthinking. Almost everyone has these problems, so if you do, you are not alone.

[00:00:20] And in this episode, we are diving into what is the cost of procrastination? What can you do when you're feeling overwhelmed? How can you stop comparing yourself to other people? And how can you deal with self doubt? Welcome to the becoming great dotcom podcast.

[00:00:44] The feeling that you're the only one who can't take action because you see all the other people who takes action and that you need to have your shit together and that you need to be perfect and that you need this facade. I think one of the biggest lies of society is that there is something called adults. And we believe when we were kids, we thought that the grownups had their shit together. And now we're grown ups realize that no one has their shit together.

[00:01:29] And I am here with Erik Bergman, who is the founder of Great.com, a company that would give away 100 percent of its profits to help the environment. And Erik made over 15 million euros before he was 30 when he founded his previous company, Catina Media, a company that went from zero to 300 employees in just five years. And on the side of great, he is teaching personal development and entrepreneurship to his over 200000 followers on Instagram. Erik, how are you doing today?

[00:02:03] I'm doing well, I'm excited for this episode, and I'm here with my good friend Emil, who is the host of his podcast, as well as our other podcast, Great Outcome talks with and was the first person joining me in Great about two years ago. And on the side of Great, he runs a personal development and coaching business. And within grade, he is my creative sparring partner. He's the one I'm doing this podcast where I'm creating a lot of Instagram, a YouTube content with him. And he's also this annoyingly brilliant, smart guy that makes me feel stupid sometimes. But still, I love doing this with you, my friend. How are you today?

[00:02:45] I feel excited almost to the point of a little bit nervous because I really care about this becoming a good episode, because I wish someone would have told me the kind of stuff we are going to talk about when I was younger. So I'm really looking forward to this. And hey, if you're listening to this for the first time, this is becoming great.com podcast. Our goal is to be the podcast in the world that gives you the most value per minute that you listen within the field of personal development and entrepreneurship. And we want to accomplish this by taking a lot of time to plan episodes like this. So we make sure we give you the best information possible. And we also don't have any advertisements in our podcast. We kind of get annoyed by advertisement and other podcasts. They're a waste of time. So instead we want to give you as much value as we can per minute. So think of that the next time you hear an advertisement in another podcast. Today's episode is divided into four different topics. In the first one, we're going to look at what is the cost for overthinking and procrastination? Why do we do it even when we know what we should be doing? In topic two, we're going to look at how can we stop comparing ourselves with other people? In topic three, we're going to look at what to do when we're feeling overwhelmed. And in topic four, we're going to look at what can we do when we feel doubt, when we have negative self talk in our head.

[00:04:16] Let's begin with topic one.

[00:04:27] How to stop procrastinating. This is by far the most common question that I get, and since it is so common, we decided to put extra effort into planning and structuring this episode and really understand why are we procrastinating ourselves. So what do you think that this is the most common question that I get?

[00:04:51] Well, could you first define what you mean by overthinking is when when my followers have this problem of our thinking or procrastinating, the problem they're usually referring to is that they know what to do, but they don't do it. They know that they should start writing this essay for school, but they don't do it. They know what they should do to start a company or get going with applying for a job. But they don't do it. They know they should go to the gym, but they don't do it. Instead, they procrastinate this or they overthink this instead of getting started.

[00:05:26] Right. Why do you think this is so common?

[00:05:30] Even if I'm just looking at myself with what usually drains my energy away from getting started with things are. The number one thing is my phone like constant distractions, there are so many things on my phone that kind of take away my focus. It's very easy to get sucked into crawling and just looking at a thing. So that's one of the things that I can see as a big part for myself. The second one is comparing myself with others that that can take a lot of the motivation away that I see where I am and then I see where someone else is. And it looks so far away that it just kills my energy of even getting started. It's just that comparison element is a big thing and. Another thing is decision fatigue, it's like there are so many different things that I could do, so many different options to go that. It gets gets overwhelming and I can clearly see how this another very common question I get is, am I supposed to go to college or not? And it's clear that it takes a lot of energy to be facing that question because it's such a big life decision and still it's so many different alternatives. So where should you go to college? How should you do it? In which city? What should you study? What is important or what not? And just being in front of these questions all the time. Drains energy away, that makes it very hard to get started with it. And I see this everywhere and I feel it myself and. I want to say to anyone struggling with this problem that I really believe that. They can get around it. It's really hard. I'm cheering them on and I.

[00:07:30] I understand that pain and that struggle, and even though very few people talk about it, they feel this way, it's super clear to me that almost everyone struggles with this, even myself.

[00:07:45] Yeah, I would say most modern humans are having the problems that you just described, so if you feel that way, you're not alone and it's not really going to be a quick fix. And that's not what we want to convey here. It is hard, but yeah, I think anyone who starts to think in the way we are planning this episode and also the next one is going to make some progress in their procrastination. So we have divided the problem of overthinking and procrastination into two different aspects, which you elaborate on those early yet.

[00:08:20] So we believe that procrastination is about two parts.

[00:08:23] And the first part is about how the inner world, how our own confidence, what we believe in ourselves, how we're comparing ourselves to others and and what we feel about the things that we do. And what's very common is that we don't feel good about ourselves, which means that we don't take action and instead we do things in the short term to make us feel better, which could be watching TV, scrolling our phone, eating something crappy food. And that usually makes us feel good in the moment. But we still don't take action and instead we feel worse later on because we didn't take action. And this becomes a downward spiral that just builds more and more procrastination.

[00:09:06] And yeah. How is this in your life?

[00:09:09] Yeah, I think the spiral is real common and it's hard to break it right, because the things that makes us feel good in the short term are there to comfort and they're needed when we don't feel good about ourselves. I know this have happened to me so many times where I. Yeah, I come home and I'm a bit tired one day and then I do something I know I shouldn't, I might eat some candy or watch pornography and then I feel, why did I do that? I could have done something productive with my energy and then I feel bad about myself. So instead of going to the gym, I might eat some ice cream and lay on the sofa and watch some chill serious. And then the next day I feel even worse about myself. If I don't break that spiral, it's quite easy to continue going downwards.

[00:10:01] Yeah, and this is the spiral that I experienced myself and see going on a lot. So we've decided to split this procrastination up in two different episodes. The first one, we're going to focus on the mental side of things. How can we deal with the thought patterns we have that keep us from reaching our goals? And in the next episode that we'll publish next week, we will talk about what habits can you apply and what can you do to actually get more energy, keep your focus, limit your distractions and be more motivated to do these things. And we're starting with the mental side of things because we believe that if we start by focusing on the, like, really productive things, that will just at least that would only make me feel worse.

[00:10:47] Yeah, it's not fair.

[00:10:49] No, it's it's another thing like after we know what to do, we just don't do it. So it doesn't help us saying do these things. Instead, we'll focus on this mental side of things. How can we feel better about ourselves and how can we get more motivated to do. These are the positive things that will turn this downward spiral into an upward spiral.

[00:11:10] Yes. So pay attention and be active doing the exercises we're going to give to you, because the more you can feel good about yourself, the easier it's going to be for you to turn to negative spiral into a positive spiral. So let's switch to the next topic. We're going to look at a big reason for why you might be feeling not so good about yourself, which is comparing yourself to others. Yesterday, I had a lot of pain in my neck to the point where I couldn't really work, so the whole day instead of working, I was just doing rehab and being what I felt like was being useless, useless. That's a strong word. I felt useless. And all the time I was thinking, I'm sure Eric is doing something super productive right now. I'm sure he's reading a book about how to become a better speaker or creating content for Instagram, and it's just being a better human than me. Why do you compare yourself with me or in your specific case? I think it is because you are bombarding my Instagram all the time with three posts and I spend a lot of time with you. So you're a person that comes into my mind often. So then it's natural for me to compare myself to you.

[00:12:28] Yeah, I can see that people that pops up in front of us are easy to compare ourselves with and especially in social media. I know personally, I can see I can find myself comparing me with Gary V, who is just huge on social media with his, I don't know, 10, 15 million followers and does everything that I want to do. But he does it better than me, everything he does better than me. And on a good day, that inspires me to keep going. And on a bad day, it's just I can never accomplish this. Why am I even trying? So it's interesting to see how those can be different from day to day.

[00:13:09] Right. And on the bad days, you only see the difference between his good days and your bad days, right? Yeah, that's true as well, because he's only going to post about the good things would be more fair if he had an account really posted his bad days like this aspiration for one point. Your life sucks.

[00:13:26] Yeah. Everyone should be forced to have a positive Instagram account and Instagram account.

[00:13:34] Yeah. And I mean, even your brand now is smiling, Eric, so you can't post pictures where you're crying. You might do it anyway, but those might not reach the algorithm through the algorithms and come to me. So do you think everyone is having this problem?

[00:13:48] I believe that everyone is comparing themselves with others because I believe it's like a basic human thing.

[00:13:56] We're supposed to be in a tribe. We're supposed to know who is about who and who's in charge of what. I think that is the very basic human behavior to to compare ourselves with others. So I think that Gary V compares himself to, I don't know, Warren Buffett or Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos and feel bad about themselves. Well, and if you I think if you look at the most successful people financially, then they're looking at someone else who seems to be a happier person or a Colmar person or whatever.

[00:14:25] And yeah, I think everyone is just comparing themselves one way or another.

[00:14:31] And that's that's the tricky part about this. And I think it's important to remember that everyone is probably better at us at something and we are probably better as everyone at something. And it sounds as if I'm looking at Gary and he's better at me and posting content on Instagram, but maybe I am better than him as having deep, meaningful conversations with my friends. But it's not what I'm currently comparing. So I end up feeling bad about the things that I'm comparing with instead of seeing the bigger picture of what else is it that is important for me where I might be better, but I'm not better in this specific instance.

[00:15:14] And he's the one in a million human as well.

[00:15:16] Yeah, he's a one in a million human and he's usually the one in a million human. We see the most to compare ourselves with.

[00:15:23] Those cats are breaking through the algorithms. Yeah. And also he's not showing his weak sides. Right. So I mean, if you're listening to this, ask yourself, how often are you showing your flaws, your bad days? How often are you sharing on social media? Like, my life sucks click It's not really happening. So maybe other people aren't doing that either.

[00:15:46] Now, I think that's a good point, that if if I'm not talking about the bad parts of my day, if I'm not showing them, then why would someone else do it? I think that's a great question to ask yourself. Like, how often are you talking about the negative things? And that reminds me of I was that four years ago, four years ago when I had just broken up with Johanna, we had just broken up and I was completely devastated and crushed. And I was coming to your house because I just needed to distract myself. And I remember ringing on your doorbell and my instinct was to like, OK, Eric, don't show any emotions here, show that you are strong, that you can deal with this. No problem whatsoever. And just that was. My instinct and I wanted to be strong and cool person in that moment, and I remember when you open the door and I just I didn't manage to really stick to the cool Eric character. Instead, I just burst down in in tears and I. I couldn't hold it together, and I'm very happy that I couldn't hold it together because I remember you, you just hugged me and you took care of me in. All that day and I was allowed to be sad, and I remember I having some very meaningful conversations after that where you shared your pain and struggles in life and you didn't try to be cool either, which helped me to feel a lot better because I felt I wasn't alone in this pain and struggle with how to feel better about yourself.

[00:17:42] What can someone else learn from this experience? Because I think it's know there is something very important in there.

[00:17:48] Since I choose to be open and vulnerable, I barely choose to to be honest. I just my body didn't allow me to do anything else. But when I did that, you opened up and you were vulnerable and very real with me.

[00:18:01] And I think that's. Good thing to try that if anyone listening to you is you listening to you to this, if you try to actually open up and talk to your friends about the real pain and struggles about procrastination or love, in my case, whatever it is, and actually say how you feel, you invite other people to share how they feel as well. And you can be brave together in this, because I believe a big part of feeling that you can't take action is the feeling that you're the only one who can't take action because you see all the other people who takes action and that you need to have your shit together and that you need to be perfect and that you need this facade.

[00:18:49] Yeah, I mean, I think one of the biggest lies of society is that there is something called adults. And we believe I mean, when we were kids, we thought that the grownups had their shit together. And now we're grown ups realize that no one has their shit together. But kids had a shit together. Yeah, I think it's it's so tricky. This is something that we're all we're all struggling with. And if we just dare to talk about it more, since I decided to start talking more about these struggles myself and I realized how many other people have the same struggles, I find it's a lot easier to motivate myself to actually do things because I'm not.

[00:19:28] Feeling that powder, I'm not feeling.

[00:19:32] Alone in in the struggle, I think that is an excellent point. Do you want to have something more or are you ready to move on? No, I think we can move on from there. So let's let's jump to the next part. So what to do when we are feeling overwhelmed? How do you deal with this structure? That's the next topic.

[00:20:03] How this tiny feeling in my chest of desperation and I sort of feel that I wasn't good enough and this was back in March and. I was just overwhelmed her too many things to do, and I felt that I couldn't really.

[00:20:28] Get all the balls together for like over a hundred thousand different things jumping around in my head without really knowing where to start or or what to do.

[00:20:37] I remember feeling overwhelmed and stressed. So what did you do about it?

[00:20:44] So the first thing I did was probably watch TV for a few days because I didn't really get anything done. I feel a bit worse about myself given this the spiral we've been talking about. But once I actually realized how I was feeling because it took a while to realize that I'm not feeling well, I'm realizing that I'm over worked. Just getting that inside took a while when I realized that what I did was that I wrote a list where I put down all the things that were currently stressed. Like I asked myself, OK, Eric, what is it that you feel that you're not doing now? And I wrote down every single thing that kind of spinning around in my head said at the beginning. It felt like I had one hundred thousand balls jumping around and every ball kind of was something that I was worried about or something that, trust me, when I could take that ball out of my head and kind of put it down on a piece of paper or my computer screen, to be completely honest, it felt like my mind got a little bit calmer. And what I realized doing this actually wasn't one hundred thousand balls jumping around. It only felt that it was probably 30. So it was like 30 different things that I wanted to do or 30 different things that worried me. And just getting those out of my head and down on the screen made made everything soothing is really calmed me down to just understand why am I feeling this way? What is the struggle?

[00:22:18] Right. So instead of because I can recognize myself in this when I have a lot of things I should be doing and my brain is just looping, you should do this and this and this and this. And there is no way to keep track. So you got them all down on a paper. You so OK. It's actually not that many things, OK? No one is going to die if I don't do this. So you have it on your paper. What do you do then?

[00:22:39] So the first thing I did was to grade them from one to five. Like how how severe is this one being the most severe? Like I really need to get this done and five being OK. This is a bit annoying that it is done.

[00:22:58] And then I did that and I thought, OK, there are a few things that I really needed to take action on, most things wasn't that urgent. So that alone made it a little bit easier to do. And the next question I ask myself, what can I ask for help here? What can I ask Johanna for? Help was the first more specific thing, because there were a few things on this list that have to do with health insurance that I was in charge of fixing that or. And your fiance? Yeah, that's not the answer as sorting out health insurance. There were some things with taking the getting the car booked for an appointment because there were some issues with it. Some of these things that wasn't a very high priority, but it was still something that I knew that I was supposed to have done but haven't done just collaring them. Like I think I marked them as purple. Like, this is actually things that I could ask for help for. And then addressing to your hand, like, OK, babe, I'm not sleeping very well at the moment. And I feel feel stressed. I know that these sort of things that I'm usually in charge of, it's usually my responsibility to take care of these things. She does other things, but could you please help me? And when I came from that, if I would have just said, hey, can you sort the car insurance, she would have felt that, hey, it's kind of your thing. We kind of done this for 10 years. We're in charge of different things. But since I came from. I'm feeling overwhelmed, I'm really feeling stressed, and I could you please help me out? There were no questions asked. Just yes, I would love to help you. Thank you for asking me, sir. A lot of good things came from just writing these things down, but also then understanding why it's stressing me out and understanding what I could ask for help with.

[00:24:42] Right. I guess that is an opportunity for her to show that she cares about you. Like, I would be afraid that I'm putting pressure on someone by asking for help. But you also should give them an opportunity to do something kind to you.

[00:25:00] Yeah, I like that way of looking at it. And I think. It's very common to feel that we're being a problem for someone else, but personally, I like when people ask me for help, if it's something that I can help for them, because, as you said, it gives me an opportunity to be helpful.

[00:25:20] Gives me an opportunity to add value to someone else's life. And I think a lot of the time people really want to help, especially if you're asking family or friends and you're asking with the explanation of I'm not feeling good right now. Could you help me out instead of just saying, could you help me out?

[00:25:39] Right. And do you think this would be a good exercise for someone to do?

[00:25:43] Yeah, I think it would be very beneficial. It's been very beneficial for me. So I just starting by writing down all the things that kind of stresses you out, whatever it is, and grading them and getting it, understanding why is all of these ball spinning around in my head. That alone was very, very valuable to me. And then adding the layer, what could I ask for help and also adding another layer. What in this list could actually be a scratch? Because it's honestly not important. It just had a bit of decision to scrap it.

[00:26:13] I think that's it's a very useful exercise to do. Yeah, I think so, too. What's causing stress for you?

[00:26:20] I would say if I'm in a similar situation that you describe, I have a lot of things I should be doing floating around in my head. And the more specific my tasks are, the more stressed, I guess. So what do you mean with unspecific? Like if I have a thought in my head that says I should be doing more YouTube videos than first of all, if it's like a demand because I'm using the word should, but then more YouTube videos, it's so unspecific that it's just causing me stress.

[00:26:51] Yeah, I can see that.

[00:26:54] So if I instead break it down saying, OK, this week I will write a script and I will do a recording, and on Thursday and Friday I will edit and do the time. It doesn't matter what it is, but as long as there's a more specific plan and more doable goals, YouTube videos, plural becomes very vague. And that sets me up, at least for, yes, feeling overwhelmed. And also there are no points where I can celebrate a victory along the way.

[00:27:23] So you could you could argue that this is like the tennis balls in my head jumping around, that if it's doing more YouTube videos, that could feel like a hundred balls just bouncing. But when you kind of realize that, OK, I want to research, I want to write the script, I want to film, you kind of get those balls in order and everything else quiets down.

[00:27:44] Yeah. And I think that's so common as a reason for why you might feel overwhelmed. So let's say you're in school and you have a task to I'm going to write this thesis and I have three months to do it. You know, if you don't break that into smaller goals, I think it's so easy to get overwhelmed. They just wait until the last minute. So they're there needs to be smaller goals. Like on Monday, I will go to the library for two hours and I will write one page. And if you do that, you can feel 100 percent confident and happy about what you have done and then you can celebrate. Oh, I did what I should do. Now I can play some computer games with good conscience instead of feeling this layering sensation of guilt, because, you know, I should really be writing that thesis, layering, feeling of guilt, OK?

[00:28:31] I mean, when we know we're supposed to do something, but we end up doing something else. And there is this little tiny sense of, hey, this I know I'm not supposed to do this, so it's hard to enjoy that computer game, whatever it is instead.

[00:28:45] Exactly. Yesterday when I was had this show today and I couldn't do anything, I went to my brother and I played computer games with him that evening. And I had his voice in my head saying, hey, you haven't done anything today. Why should you enjoy this?

[00:29:00] You haven't earned the joy.

[00:29:02] Yeah, exactly. So I think I would have enjoyed the computer games more if I knew the OK, I've also done my tasks.

[00:29:09] Something that I really like is that micro goals like know, going to the library for two hours and writing one page can still feel pretty overwhelming and just having to my goal is I'm going to go to the library. Whatever I do there doesn't really matter. At least that's better than being at home watching Netflix.

[00:29:34] And why is micrographs helpful for you?

[00:29:36] Because it's easy that if I just get to the library, then I probably haven't been in the library for fifteen years. But Will sticking with this analogy at least, then it's pretty likely that I would end up studying. So I'm using this to play guitar. I've been wanting to learn how to play guitar for fifteen years and I'm still struggling. But for the last six months or so, my micro goal has been I'm going to play guitar for one minute per day and I do that maybe six days a week. And a lot of them I end up playing for 20, 30, 40 minutes. But as long as I've just held the guitar, that's the win. I don't it doesn't matter if I play for one minute or forty minutes in the terms of did I stick to my goal, I just did it for one minute. So I think it's it helps me to to not be hard on myself and it helps me to keep the habit of doing it right.

[00:30:32] And then you're getting small wins, you start feeling successful and you start breaking the negative loop of feeling bad about yourself.

[00:30:39] Yeah, exactly. Interesting. Yeah. So to have something more or would you like to move on.

[00:30:44] Let's move on to the next topic, which is how to remove self doubt.

[00:30:58] I was in my early teenage years, you know, at a time when guys get into puberty and their voices started to go like, oh oh this time, yeah.

[00:31:11] And I was sitting in the kitchen. I remember it so vividly at home and I was singing some song, probably more like this. Oh. And my dad came in to the room and said, wow, it's hard to translate to English, but you have to have false.

[00:31:29] Your singing kid didn't sound like that in Swedish, but that was his kind of joke. And I remember I yes, it was like the air went out of me and of course, my dad didn't mean anything. I mean by this like it was a tiny mistake and will make a hundred mistakes as a parent. But this for some reason, I made us a truth. So I sing horribly and I kept that as a truth for so long. I remember in high school I avoided singing classes, the music part in school, and I never sang at a party or I stayed away from all the instruments and I didn't record my voice at all until I was 23, where I tried recording myself, speaking and singing for the first time. And then I hadn't used my voice in 10 years. So of course it sounded horrible. But then that just proved a truth that I had made for myself when I was 12, 13 years old, that my voice is not good, I cannot sing, and that has been a big struggle for me.

[00:32:32] The truth is, the truth came from what your your father's joke, basically, and to be you probably were singing horribly at the time. And that then became your truth. That meant that you never practiced singing and then you got very self-conscious about it. And then once you actually tried singing 10 years later, you didn't know how to do things. That became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

[00:32:57] Of course, it became a filter. I was seeing reality through and I can see it.

[00:33:01] And I remember when I was when I was a kid, my my parents told me that I'm lazy and that that's stuck with me as well.

[00:33:14] I probably was lazy at the time, but that became a part of my identity that I remember now in my twenty five when I'm twenty five or something. I've been working really, really hard and I'm on the verge of burning myself out. And I remember talking to Johanna, my fiancee, about myself being lazy and she's like looking at me like you're crazy. You're about to kill yourself because you're working so hard. And I was still in the identity that I was lazy, feeling bad about myself because I wasn't pushing myself harder because of this truth I made up based on what my parents told me when I was a kid. Right.

[00:33:56] And do you think this is common, having these kind of truths that is holding us back?

[00:34:01] I think all of us are having these truths and some of them come from our parents. A lot of them probably come from our parents, to be honest. Some of them come from from friends. I actually remember how similar singing story when another when I was probably 10, 11 years old and a boy in my class told me that I couldn't sing at all. And I felt the same way for a long time, just based on what he said.

[00:34:24] He made fun of me for trying to sing and say it could definitely see it coming from all kinds of directions. And I think I'm a bad singer is a common truth like that. I think I am lazy is another common truth. But another one I know that I've had is I am a person who can't sleep, so I struggle to fall asleep. And it's also very unproductive truth because we might feel that way, but it's it's not helping us.

[00:34:53] And when I felt this way, I kind of think about it. When I go to bed at night, I struggle even more to feel sleep. And it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy of your voice. That's what other truths do you think are common to not feel like a good singer?

[00:35:13] I'm still not a good girl, so there is some truth to it. But it's a kind of what I mean by that is first you can see my filter still there. And also you're not going to see me in Idol any time soon. So it's like it's hard to overcome a filter like that. And it's even worse if it's made with something more important than just your singing. Maybe it could be someone feel stupid or not good socially or I can't do anything right now. I, I think those are real tricky filters to deal with because they're deeply ingrained, right?

[00:35:47] Yeah. And I think the first step is to be aware of these filters. I you know, I didn't know that I had the filter. I am lazy until. And I kind of challenged, you are not lazy, is stupid. Yeah, something.

[00:36:04] So how can you become aware of those filters and truths if you don't have a few hindsight pointing them out to you?

[00:36:11] So I think the first part is just listening to this episode now and realize, hey, I probably have these truths and then ask yourself, why am I not reaching my goals and see what kind of answers come up? Because you're probably going to have troops there saying things like, I'm lazy or I'm stupid or it's too hard or I can't afford this or I'm too old. It's too late for these reasons that you come up with when you ask yourself, why am I not doing this or why am I not happy? They're probably going to be true that you have been carrying around for a long time. And just the first step is just to be aware of them and see the next step would be to write them down and say, OK, what are the reasons that you tell yourself and after that start challenging them? Is this really true? I mean, if you would challenge yourself and say, why are you a bad singer if you have that in front of me, I'm a bad singers.

[00:37:12] And your only argument would be because my father told me once when I was 12, it's like. Is that really the truth?

[00:37:20] But the problem is, if you've been thinking that your whole life, because like me, I was recording myself and indeed I was a horribly bad singer, one out of 10 good, according to me.

[00:37:33] And if you have felt unintelligence your whole life, maybe you're going to say unintelligent things just make sense.

[00:37:42] Like, how do you go about dealing with it if it has become a truth, if you start by writing them down and then you can start by challenging, is this really true? And if the answer is yes, how we can address this in one way and if the answer is no, then it's good to be aware of it. But let's say let's take the example with your singing voice and just say, yes, I have a really bad singer. And then you can ask yourself, is this the truth that is serving me somehow? Is it good for me to think this way or would it be better to think about it in some other way? And you could instead of saying I'm a bad singer, you could say, I wish I was a good singer. Which is a much more positive way of getting your mind to focus on these things, or you could say, how can I learn to be a good singer?

[00:38:33] Right. I remember I was listening to tape of myself where I was singing and I said, wow, this is really bad. But there's like five percent where it's not false.

[00:38:43] And those tones actually sound OK. And it was the same thing just when we recorded this podcast in the beginning, the first episode, I was cringing so much when I was listening to myself speech, but I was like, there are 10 percent in there where it's like it's OK. And just that disproves the statement I cannot sing.

[00:39:06] It starts creating some kind of positive loop, if you record that and there's five percent good, the truth is suddenly I cannot sing all the time. It's a different truth thing when it's there's something in there.

[00:39:20] Yeah, I wish I was good at singing. How can I sing like that more often?

[00:39:24] Yes. Just getting these truths down on a paper and challenge them if they're true and if they're not. Ask yourself, does this serve me? And then used questions like how could I get good at this? Or just stating I wish I was good at this. We'll start changing your association to these truths and and make it easier to to deal with them.

[00:39:49] And the recent Eric is saying, I wish I was good at this is because there's a lot of ideas of affirmations out there. Right? I am confident. I am confident. But if your nervous system doesn't believe in it, it's just going to be rejected by your nervous system and your brain.

[00:40:07] It's not going to feel real. So instead, you can say, I wish I was confident. And that is 100 percent true. And when you start hearing the word, I am confident often enough, you're going to slowly start moving that into the familiar category of the nervous system. It's going to be let into you in another way.

[00:40:26] Yes, you can you can change those truths, because personally, I don't like the idea of affirmations at all. Just saying I am confident person. I don't believe it will take you anywhere saying I'm a good singer. But yes, that little change in words like I wish I was confident. I wish I was a good singer. I've used it myself in various occasions when I've been I'm not wanted to be angry at someone because I feel it just doesn't good do any good for me. But I can't tell myself I'm not angry at this person. I can't even say I don't want to be angry at this person. But I can say I wish that I don't want to be angry at this person and it feels true in me. And it actually shifts the energy from anger to to something else.

[00:41:07] Yeah, you really want to start with honesty, and I highly recommend that you actually do the practice of writing your troops down. You catch them in your mind and then you write them down because it's easier when you have them on paper. And also if you have a truth like I can sing and you change it to I wish I could sing or I'm learning how to sing, then you can always go back and you can look at that paper later and saying, Ah, this filters what I prefer now. Yeah. All of these negative beliefs you have about yourself, they're sucking out energy, they're sucking out life force because they make you feel bad about yourself.

[00:41:44] Every negative belief you have that you can instead replace with a positive one that is true for you is going to add energy and take you out of this negative loop we've been talking about and into a more positive one. So, Eric, this has been a lot this episode. How would you how would you summarize it? What should someone take with them from this conversation?

[00:42:05] Yes, it's definitely been a long one. I believe there are three things that are the most important ones here. And the first one is about comparing ourselves that is crucial to understand that everyone compares themselves to other people and we very often end up comparing. Or bad day was someone else's great day or our bad skill was someone else's best skill and.

[00:42:30] This is simply the way it is.

[00:42:32] I don't believe in people telling ourselves, stop comparing yourself because I don't think that it's something we can just decide to not do. So just being aware of that, everyone feels this way. Everyone struggles. Everyone is comparing themselves. So at least you're not lonely in this behavior. And if you start talking about how you're feeling with other people, you can realize that they're struggling with the same things. And it's probably going to be a lot less painful to quit comparing yourself. And the second one is to understand the feeling of being overwhelmed, the feeling of why am I not taking actions? What are all these things that I wish that I did and get them out of your head like these tennis balls bouncing around and actually down on paper so you can see them in front of you. And at least for me, it helps a lot to understand why am I feeling overwhelmed, what's going on right now and everything about it. And the third one being understand what truths you you're telling yourself. Like what am I saying to myself? What's actually what I believe stopped myself and can I change those things? And if you manage to just change one, it's going to make a big impact for you because they suck your energy away. You just get a positive associations instead of asking yourself and instead of saying, I can't afford this, get it to start as yourself. How can I afford this? Instead of saying I'm not good enough to do this, ask yourself, how could I be good enough to do this or just say I wish I was good enough to do this?

[00:44:04] Right. And we spoke about the negative spiral in the beginning where self bad self talk leads to bad habits. That leads to more, less confidence, and you just keep going downwards. But so we were talking to ourselves before we planned it because we have 100 ideas on how you can improve your habits.

[00:44:27] But we really didn't want to bring any of them up before we were talking about the feelings behind it, the feelings that are causing this negative spiral. So if you are still here and listening, thank you so much for having the patience to sit through a really long episode because but going this longer route, I think you're going to get so much more benefit out of next week episodes where we talk about the actual habits you can fix, because if we would have thrown that on you straight away, you would obviously have felt more overwhelmed. It would have been more things to do on your to do list, but now you're equipped with the mental side of it.

[00:45:05] You're going to be so in such a better position to actually start getting into a positive spiral. I hope that makes sense. Eric, what would you like to say to someone as a last piece of value today before they leave?

[00:45:22] So first, I'd like to say that we're really sharing on you procrastinating. We really we know how struggling this is. You're definitely not alone. So many people out there are going through the same thing in this.

[00:45:35] And it's painful and frustrating and overwhelming. And it's very easy to be hard on ourselves. I'm hard on myself when I'm procrastinating and overthinking. So I like to start addressing that. But as the last piece of advice with this podcast, I'd like to say, if you are communicating back and communicating, commuting is the word I'm looking for back and forth to work.

[00:46:02] If you're walking or driving or going on a bus, you have time there that you could use to get make your life better. So instead of listening to music or just scrolling Instagram, I would highly recommend you to listen to a podcast or listen to an audio book and preferably becoming great, because if you haven't listened to all of our podcast episode, we now don't think this is number eight or something like that. So there's a long back catalog with lots of advice and guidance on how you can improve your lives. And if you have one hour back and forth to school or work, you can learn so much. Don't waste that time. Make sure you get the most out of it. And if you don't want to help us out, what can they do?

[00:46:46] Well, it would be super duper cool if you could go into your podcast app and press subscribe, that would really help us to get these kind of conversations out more in the world, because if we get a lot of subscribers in comparison to how many listeners we have, that's going to get us into different podcasts, top lists, and then more people can see these dialogues and learn from us so that we would very much appreciate.

[00:47:11] Please do that. It will give us a lot of inspiration to keep going.

[00:47:16] It sure will. So we see you in the next week. Cheers

Great.com was founded by online casino entrepreneur, Erik Bergman, to raise money for the ongoing fight against climate change. In collaboration with online casino brands like Party casino and Mgm online casino, they’ve raised over $1.3 million to combat dependency on fossil fuels, decrease the use of diesel in the shipping industry, and protect the rainforest among other climate change initiatives.